


Is This A New Beginning Or The Start Of Another End

by MeredithBrody



Category: Critical Role (Web Series), Dungeons & Dragons - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, and therefore everyone else pain, but you guys it's zoe mclellan, i had to do it i love her, marina is a precious little potato, mostly i get to cause caleb pain, super self indulgent crossover
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2019-12-30 00:57:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18304919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MeredithBrody/pseuds/MeredithBrody
Summary: “Bren?”Caleb didn’t recognise the voice but there was no mistaking that the voice was addressing him. He felt every single one of his friends freeze as they heard that name whispered too. There was no doubt in Caleb’s mind this was someone who knew him in his old life. The life he tried to run from, the life he tried to forget.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not going to lie. This fic is mostly self-indulgence because writing my favourite actress into anything is the goal. Marina is from the 2000 Dungeons and Dragons movie with Jeremy Irons and if you haven't watched it... well. I would say I recommend it but only if you love really cheesy films. Mostly this serves as a trigger for Caleb to be an angsty and emo.
> 
> Major thanks to my best bed-buddy laurahobbit for betaing for me and to smokeandjollyranchers and vanni on the Widojest Discord for helping me solve one of my mechanic problems.
> 
> Title is from the song "I Knew You When" by Marianas Trench

“Bren?”

Caleb didn’t recognise the voice but there was no mistaking that the voice was addressing him. He felt every single one of his friends freeze as they heard that name whispered too. There was no doubt in Caleb’s mind this was someone who knew him in his old life. The life he tried to run from, the life he tried to forget. He was rarely successful at either. He hadn’t lifted his eyes yet to see who had recognised him. If he was truthful he was afraid too. He was about to when he saw the guards coming up and opening the grate over the cell the voice had emanated from. “You want this one too? She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”

“Yes, we’ll take her too,” Fjord spoke strongly, with a tone of command that Caleb rarely heard him adopt, but likely he thought that he was going to have to take control while Caleb worked things through in his mind. How did that one word throw him so far so fast? How did it push him so far out of his comfort zone? Trent hadn’t found him yet, and he doubted that this was a trap. It was possible, but it seemed unlikely. He still hadn’t looked to see who it was who had recognised him. He left her to the others and went back to helping Nott with Yeza. She was still disguised, that might have to be discussed before it ran out but that was up to Nott.

There was soft conversation going on behind him, he heard Jester muttering a quiet healing spell and asking how the newcomer had come to be so badly hurt while they took them up to the rooms they had been given while they were here. Caleb wasn’t sure he wanted to know. He wasn’t sure that he could bring himself to be interested in this relic from his past. Something he didn’t want to think about. He wasn’t ready for this. “Bren, are you going to look at me?” The voice was still soft and he started to form some hint of recognition, he remembered the voice from when he’d go to read. She was a font of knowledge then. She knew every book at the library in Rexxantrum and she would have almost certainly known him from the hours he’d been allowed to stay there.

“His name is Caleb now.” He heard Jester again, clearly deciding that he couldn’t tell her himself and Jester wasn’t wrong. Caleb still hadn’t found his voice. Instead, he was back there. Fourteen years old, asking her where the books on dunamancy were. She had told him that unless she got permission from one of the high ups she couldn’t show him. The following day she’d been gone and he didn’t see her for a week. She let him do whatever he wanted after that, he didn’t know what Trent had done to her for that to happen, but he could guess. “What’s your name, and how did you end up at a prison in Xhorhas?”

“Marina, I’m Marina.” Her voice was small even when she wasn’t in the library. She wasn’t that much older than Caleb. Four or five years only, and she’d never been the most powerful of spellcasters. He’d remembered Trent telling them that the librarians were there because their skills would never be useful outside of the Assembly, Marina was obviously proving that wrong. She might not be thriving, but she was alive and that took skill. “I ran away from the Assembly after I heard some of the things that were happening to the talented students. I tried to protest it and... Well, they weren’t happy with me.”

“How are you alive?” Caleb’s question jumped out despite his desire to remain silent. Silence wouldn’t get him that answer and it was something he needed. He didn’t know anyone who had escaped other than him and that was partly the situation he’d ended up in. “Ikathon doesn’t normally allow his detractors to live.”

“He thinks I’m dead. I am one of the King’s nieces. It gave me certain protections.” Marina pulled out an amulet similar to the one Caleb had for his protection, though it was far less beat up than his. Caleb guessed that hers had been made for her if she had that much pull. She looked as terrified as he felt and strangely that made him feel better. “It’s been 4 years but I got captured for helping Yeza and... They really don’t like humans up here but at least I was safe from the Assembly.” That appeared to be an understatement but Caleb decided not to correct her about that given that they had gotten her out of the situation.

But there were even more questions that he had. Which he had spent plenty of time in the Empire with the rest of the Nein, and even before that, he did that because he hadn’t really had a choice. If she had resources why did she stay? “You stayed in the Empire?” Caleb was thankful that someone else asked it. Beau, he thought. It would have been Beau, she knew Caleb’s history better than almost anyone else in the Nein.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” Marina replied after a moment, and Caleb had an urge to ask Jester to cast her spell that made people tell the truth. Just so that they knew that Marina was telling the truth. “I had some friends still in Felderwin from when I was young. When I got there they arranged with Yeza for some work when he needed help in his shop.” It was then that Marina looked around again, her eyes landing on Nott. “You’re Veth, aren’t you?”

“I am. Thank you for helping my husband.” She nodded and Caleb had an urge to grab his friend away just in case Marina was lying. Nott, thankfully, was able to sense the change in Caleb’s mood. “Caleb, Beau and I want to talk to you in the other cart for a moment. Let Yeza and Marina rest.” Beau seemed almost as surprised as Caleb at that suggestion but she followed just as quick as Caleb did himself into another one of their rooms.

Once they were in the private room, just the three of them, Caleb knew that the conversation was going to turn to this sudden change in their circumstance. He had thought that there was going to be something connected to his past but he didn’t think that it would be like this. “You know her?” Nott asked, nodding back toward the room they had just left.

“Knew. She used to work at the library at the Assembly in Rexxentrum.” Caleb wanted to correct that. Marina belonged to Bren. A past that he didn’t truly recognise as his own anymore. There was nothing that Caleb wanted to claim but he knew that it was going to be something he had to face. Marina was just the start of it. “I would ask her for books, she would take me to the books.” 

“So… how much does she actually know?” Beau seemed to be the first one to realise exactly how uncomfortable Caleb was about this, but truthfully he didn’t know how much Marina knew. He wasn’t sure that she would be quite so kind to him if she knew the true details. If she knew about his parents. About Astrid and Edowulf’s too. He didn’t think that there would be a kind word left in her. 

Then again, Beau and Nott knew everything and were still kind to him. Caleb experienced another moment of doubt about what was potentially going on, worrying that this could still be a trap, but how would he know? “All of it, I think. I don’t know. Maybe she’s suspects more than she knows.” That was what he was going to cling on too. She was alive, even with the amulet, maybe she didn’t know anything. Though. He was also alive, and  _ he did _ know everything. “She clearly knows enough if she has been banished by the Assembly, that she was worried enough to also magically protect herself. She must know something but I don’t know...”

“Are you going to need to tell everyone else the rest of the details about what happened to you before she does?” Nott’s voice was soft, suggesting not demanding. Caleb looked between them and he could see Beau chewing the inside of her lip. He appreciated her restraint in not telling him immediately that he should tell them. He didn’t know if he was ready for that. 

“I… do not know.” His voice seemed to be fading as he thought about that idea and he had to consciously raise his voice to say the rest of his thought and for the first time hoped that his trust wasn’t misplaced. “I would like to think that she is trustworthy if she found out what Ikathon was doing and did not stay silent any longer… She will not tell.”

“I can stay around her until you’re certain of that. She can room with me and Jester.” That was a good idea. Caleb would not have thought about it. “Means if she’s gonna say anything I can get Jester out the way and then I can kick her skinny ass for speaking out of turn.” It warmed his heart a little that Beau was so ready to protect him, and make sure that Jester didn’t find anything out before he was ready, but that still didn’t help him actually feel at all comfortable with this.

“Thank you, Beau. Let them both sleep tonight. Tomorrow we’ll be back on the road and we can decide what to do.” He wasn’t really sure what would happen if they tried to re-enter the Empire, he needed to finish his studying to see if he could make it so that wasn’t something that they needed to worry about, but right now he would still need a few days.

“Caleb… I know that she’s been safe so far but I’m sure if Yeza returns to Felderwin he will have greater observing by the Empire so he and I were talking about maybe taking him to Nicodranas and Jester’s mother, getting Edith to bring Luke to meet us. Do you think Marina would want to go there too?” Nott was so thoughtful when she wanted to be, but Caleb couldn’t answer that. 

“We will have to ask her. Maybe a trip to the coast will be good for us all after this.” He tried to sound a lot more hopeful than he actually was, but he had no idea how this was going to work and he didn’t know if Marina was what she claimed. He wanted to talk to her, and he was going to need Jester’s help. It looked like he would have to tell her sooner than he wanted too after all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter got... complicated in my brain. Many thanks to my bestie lauramebob for reading through this while I was struggling with it.

The last few days had been almost constant overload for Jester. She wasn’t sure how much more she could take in but it felt like it wasn’t going to stop. When they’d all met up and decided to travel together she had never thought that they would be here. That they would be trying to fix the world together so many months later. They really were her best friends now and she didn’t really want to imagine anything bad happening to them ever. Looking out the window into the perpetual night in this place she felt uncomfortable; like she couldn’t process. She knew that those kinds of bad things happened but she didn’t like to think about them. She hadn’t realised how lucky she’d been all her life until she started travelling with the Nein and seen how other people lived, learnt how her friends now were affected by not great things they’d been through. This stream of thoughts was interrupted as she heard a voice beside her. “Jester, may I talk to you.”

“Want me to hang around?” Beau’s voice this time, though Jester didn’t turn around to look. She had been enjoying this solitude, she’d needed some time to think after the last couple of days and while she’d spoken to everyone else she’d figured that Caleb would search her out when it mattered, and it turned out that she’d been right.

“No, we’ll be okay, thank you.” Caleb’s confident answer didn’t actually instil Jester with any confidence herself. He’d almost killed her less than 2 days ago, even if he hadn’t been in his right mind, controlled, and she didn’t hold it against him, she just didn’t really know how to process it. When she next looked up Caleb had closed the door to her room. “I would like to as for your help with making sure that Marina is telling us the truth. Can you still do your truth spell?”

“I can tomorrow if you need it?” Jester had been sending messages to the people they loved most of the afternoon, or what she thought had been the afternoon, and that didn’t count that she still hadn’t really gotten to rest properly. She didn’t even think twice of the request, she’d actually been expecting it. Ever since Marina had been found. Jester knew enough about Caleb’s past that it was concerning her, she didn’t know how much that was going to be hurting him. “What’s going on Caleb?” 

“There are still some… parts of what happened to me when I was young that you do not know and I wasn’t sure about ever telling you since it is in the past but Marina may know about it.” After an initial stutter, Caleb’s words went in a vastly different direction to what she was expecting and it took her a moment to readjust to what he was saying and think about that. 

“Whatever it is Caleb you don’t need to worry. I can do the spell tomorrow when we’ve all slept.” Jester wasn’t going to make him tell her anything that he didn’t want too, but she would find out in the morning if they spoke about it anyway. It was clear he was still cautious about this but if he’d decided that it was time what did it change? “Do you want to tell me? You don’t have to but I’m kind of really good at keeping secrets.”

There was that small quirk at the corners of his lips that she loved to see when they were together. Nobody else made him smile like that and she was proud of herself for that. “I don’t want you to hear it from someone else.” He replied slowly, deliberate thought put into each word as if it was the decree of a King. “It is not good. It will make you think differently of me.”

“We’ve been travelling together for months Caleb, I know your big heart. Nothing will change that.” Jester knew there was absolutely nothing that Caleb could tell her that would make her think badly of him. She knew there was something dark, it was clear from his reaction when he’d had to kill someone to protect the rest of them, but she’d never thought to probe. “I mean I’ve known you when you were stinky and when we didn’t get to bath for weeks and when we were pirates and when we…”

“I killed my parents.” He blurted unceremoniously in the middle of her list and Jester had to admit that it stopped her listing of their adventures. More out of shock than out of any kind of judgement. She decided that, for once, staying silent and letting Caleb talk at his own pace was probably for the best so she just stopped and listened to him. “Remember I told you about how I was picked by Ikithon. What he trained me to do. One of the last tests I had to do, the thing that sent me crazy, was killing my parents… and the spells that convinced me to do that being removed.” Caleb said it with such sincerity and such formality that it was hard for her to judge any emotion out of it.

“Okay, okay, okay.” It was a phrase that was more to steady herself than it was actually anything that she thought. “That is bad… but it doesn’t change how I think of you now. That was the other man. Bren. You aren’t him anymore. You haven’t been him in a long time. You said that yourself. You  _ were _ Bren Ermendrud. Now you’re not. Now you’re Caleb. I think maybe you were Caleb back then too… and that’s why it hurt you so much to have done something so bad.” Jester didn’t know Bren. Maybe he’d been a bad guy, but Caleb wasn’t bad. He’d never been bad. She didn’t believe that.

The familiar tilt of the head that Caleb gave her when he was considering what she was saying before he smiled and shook his head, reaching out to squeeze her hand. “Oh Jester, that is a very sweet way of looking at all of this.” He didn’t believe her, did he? 

“It’s just the truth, Caleb. You aren’t him anymore. If you were… you wouldn’t be asking me to do a truth spell, you’d be having Beau and Yasha hold her down.” The thought made Jester sad but if she was honest Beau and Yasha would probably have both preferred that slightly more physical way of doing things. Jester thought that this was better, they would be needing Marina to agree and Caleb would be in control. “That’s more proof you aren’t him anymore.”

“Jester… If I was still him… I would not know you now.” Caleb still had that smile that he so rarely pulled out and she felt her face fall a little thinking about that possibility. She didn’t want to imagine what the Mighty Nein would be without Caleb. Well… They wouldn’t be the Mighty Nein, to start with. She had apparently stayed quiet a moment too long but it meant that she could still hear Caleb’s very quiet continuation. “I am very glad that I know you now.”

“I’m glad I know you too,” Jester replied at her normal volume and nudged him with her shoulder. This was probably the right time to talk about the morning, especially since she needed to sleep soon and the room she normally shared with Beau would be very crowded tonight if Marina was in there too so she wouldn’t have time to think anything further once she left this room. “I will do this in the morning on one condition.”

“Ja?” He asked and Jester had always wondered why he defaulted to that but she wouldn’t change it now. It was one of the many habits that made Caleb who he was. They all had plenty of them and Jester loved everyone’s quirks. 

“That we get her permission first, and that it’s only you and me in the room. The others would be scary when she’s already been through a lot.” Jester didn’t really care about what came out, but she knew that Caleb would care, and she knew that the others here would care too and it would affect how things went on.

There was some consideration and that gave Jester a moment’s pause herself. She didn’t want to force this on someone who was against it, but she knew that Marina had said something along the lines that they should do it. “I agree to that, but I don’t think she’d refuse.” Jester didn’t either, but that wasn’t the point.  

“I should go and sleep then, you should too. Fjord will be back in soon.” She grinned absolutely certain that their friend was sat outside waiting for them to be done talking in here. He didn’t like to intrude and had seemed to develop the habit of just waiting outside. That was probably part of what rooming with Molly when they’d first started travelling together had caused. “We don’t want to keep him outside too long…” Jester teased thinking it could actually be fun to leave it a few minutes longer.

“No, we probably shouldn’t. Goodnight Jester.” Caleb turned to the book Jester hadn’t even realised that he’d been carrying and Jester hoped that he would actually get some sleep rather than just studying his spells all night. She waited another thirty seconds, until she was sure that he wasn’t going to want to ask her anything else, and then turned on her heel and headed out. She’d need to sleep, then she could make sure their new passenger was what she seemed.

It wasn’t the most restful night’s sleep Jester had ever had, memories of the Iron Shepards had jumped into her mind too many times and she knew that some of that had been caused her conversation with Caleb the night before. Imagining them ever applying those methods to someone made her feel slightly sick. She was even subdued at breakfast, the dreams not leaving her alone that easily. After they’d eaten and Caleb motioned her over she stepped behind him and waited. “Marina, can you come here with my blue friend please?” 

“You got this.” She said quietly to Caleb and patted his shoulder as she spoke, knowing that he was probably also not having the easiest of times with this. Sure, once upon a time, he’d been a torturer. He would have done far worse than cast Zone of Truth, but that didn’t matter. He wasn’t that person now.

“Jester, will your spell affect both of us?” Caleb asked her quietly as they walked back up to the bedroom, Marina following them at a short distance. Jester actually quite liked the woman, she seemed sweet and every bit as scared of the Cerberus Assembly as Caleb was. Jester didn’t think she was lying, but she knew they needed to be certain of her intentions. “Or do you have to cast it on both of us?”

“If you are in the area where I cast it too, sure. It will affect you both.” Jester hadn’t expected that Caleb would want for it to affect him too, it seemed like he didn’t like talking completely truthfully to people so if he was willing that was huge, but she needed to make certain of that. “Is that what you want?”

“You know it all now, I’m not afraid.” He opened the door as he spoke and for a second all Jester could think about was how much he had grown and developed since they’d all met and she was overcome with fondness for her dirty wizard. 

“I’m proud of you.” She kissed his cheek as she walked past and looked around the room planning how she was going to do this. She didn’t want to be affected by the spell, not right now, so she needed to make sure that she cast it in an area where she would be outside of it but it would affect Caleb and Marina. Possibly over on the opposite side of the room.

“Marina… I want you and I to be able to trust each other. To know that we are not working, still, for the Assembly and that we do not pose a danger to each other.” It was said so matter-of-factly that she almost forgot that this was someone Caleb had known a long time. “Jester can cast a spell in which we will not be able to outright lie. She will know if we do, if we try to fight it or if we’re not being entirely truthful and will say so.”

“I won’t fight it. I’m scared about your motives too.” Marina nodded and sat herself on the floor at the foot of one of the beds, crossing her legs in front of her after making sure that her dress wasn’t too badly ruffled. “Does she know it all, Caleb?”

Caleb nodded then sat opposite her and opened his mouth a few times but no words came out. It was something that Jester had seen before, but normally only when she’d said something that made him blush or Beau had said something that was actually nice. After another moment of struggle, he turned to with a pleading look in his eyes. “Jester, can you ask the first question? For both of us.”

“Okay, okay, okay… How did you really come to leave the Cerberus Assembly?” Jester asked it in such a way that either one of them could answer, and either one of them would have to be truthful to the other. It wasn’t going to be easy for either of them, but that didn’t really matter. They would speak and that would help them both. They weren’t alone in this. 

‘Thank you’ He mouthed to her then turned back to watch Marina as she spoke. Repeating her story from the night before, filling in some blanks. Astrid finding her and trying to capture her, Marina being injured badly, but found by friends before she died. Caleb didn’t look at Jester’s face when Marina mentioned Astrid. Maybe he hadn’t quite told her everything, Jester mused, but that made sense because Caleb had spoken to her about Astrid before, and Jester had written that letter for Nott. He wouldn’t have thought he needed to tell her more about that. The more she listened, the more Marina said without even telling a half lie, the more Jester believed this wasn’t a set-up or a way for Trent to capture Caleb again. Marina told her story all the way through to being captured and taken to Xhorhas, it was only then that she faltered, but Jester knew she still wasn’t lying. 

Caleb’s story was harder for her to listen too. Not because it changed her mind about him, it didn’t and she didn’t think that anything ever would but she hated hearing how much her friend had been broken. How much he hated himself for the things that he’d been forced to do and it took everything in her not to break her concentration and just run up to him and hug him. She was never going to tell the others what happened here, but Jester thought he was right. He and Marina had needed to know this about each other. Neither one of them lied, and when the spell wore off Jester took a large breath then went to squeeze Caleb’s shoulder. “There, you both know where you stand now. Neither of you told a lie, you know the truth of each other.”

“Thank you, Jester,” Caleb whispered to her and she turned back to the door, she didn’t want to intrude any longer and she felt that he needed to sit and finish talking with each other, and she didn’t need to be there for that. There was one thing that Jester didn’t understand, and that was why Caleb thought that what happened to him in the past would change her mind about him.


End file.
